One of the more crazy things i have done in a while....

How to make a watercooled POWER SUPPLY

Greets, this is another article in a series of articles that i may never write, and they dont contain much, so who cares!

Anyways, this particular articles has to do with watercooling a computer PSU.

Why? why not.

Will it blow my computer up? probably. maybe. if you dont screw up.

and, Why? cos having a watercooled power suppy means 1 less fan in a computer, which means less noise. oh, and WHY NOT.

So here is a series of pics, and what i did to electrocute, i mean, watercool a PSU.

Step 1. Get PSU and take the lid off and unscrew the circuit board from the bottom. Make sure that this PSU has not been turned on within 12 hours of doing this, cos you could get a nasty shock. After taking it out, this is what i got.

Here is another view.

Sorry for the quality of the pics, its a crappy camera.

Step 2. I used my soldering iron to remove the components attatched to those heatsinks, and i got this.

You can see how the components are mounted, with a screw, and a silicone insulation shim.

Step 3. Take those components off and size and cut a lump of 3 mm copper plate to the same size. In that plate, drill holes for the 4 screws. When drilling the holes, use a 3 mm drill. Then get a 8 mm drill and use that drill with your fingers and twist it in each hole, that removes the burs that can stick through your silicone shim. You DONT want those components to come in electrical contact with the copper sheet. It will more then likely destroy your entire computer as 300 volts DC courses through your water cooling system and into the CPU core. NOT GOOD.

Done.

Step 4. Cute some copper tubing to be about an inch longer over each end of the copper plate. This is what i used.

6mm Copper tubing. (1/4 inch)

Step 5. Clean your tubing and copper plate with a polish. I used BRASSO.

Ohh, nice and shiny! i am such an idiot. anyways......

Step 6. Solder the tube onto the plate with a solder torch or a big soldering iron.Make sure you dont damage or put solder onto the surfaces that your components are going to mount to. Clean it up, and mount your components back on. DONT MIX THEM UP.

Step 7. TEST and then TEST again, to make sure that each component is insulated from each other, and from the plate. Any current flow is a big big BIG BAD thing. Use a multimeter set on HIGH resistance to test it. Dont use a megger, thats just dumb. Your components may well fry. And a point to note is that some of the components are more then likely static sensitive, so at least take some precautions.

Step 8. Put the component assembly back into the power supply, soldering it all back up again properly, the way it was BEFORE you ripped its guts out.

Step 9. Do the other heatsink the same.

Done, as you can see, i have looped some plastic tubing around in a u shape, and superglued it into place.

I then got some copper wire and soldered the two output pipes as you can see in the pic. This stops the plates from moving around and touching/breaking/shorting things out. that is a BAD thing.

Cut/unplug the fan, and put a grill over the fan hole, and it is done. You stick the pipes out through the grill in the power supply. If there is no grill, drill some holes.

And the final step is a leaktest, and then RESISTANCE TEST AGAIN. Make sure that in your machinations, nothing has shorted. If this power supply is put into your main cooling loop, and one of the main transistors insulation fails, its going to put about 300 volts DC into your atx power connector, or your CPU as i said before.

No need to say this, but that is a really bad thing. That is bang time, that is like TOTAL DESTRUCTION involving removing pieces of shrapnel from your dumb head. So make sure of your leak and insulation test.

Now i am a bit of a geek and tend to take short cuts, but i tested that insulation as well as i possible could. This mod could destroy your 3 grand piece of hardware like a blast from a shotgun would. (except that there is no smell of gunpowder, and that sucks cos gunpowder smells nice... ahem whatever)

So yea, this is probably the most dangerous mod you can EVER do to your computer. This is potentially life and pocket threatening.

If you feel at all like this is too much DONT i repeat DONT DO THIS.

Psu fans arent that loud, and you will live with it.

NOTES.

It is wise to have your case side on, and plenty of case fans, this forces extra air through the PSU and just helps with cooling.

I have run without a case side for 24 hours and the PSU case got a little warm.

As for the heat load, this DOES put some extra heat on your watercooling. And dont use chilled water, condensation in the PSU is a bad thing mmmkay?

Well thats it for my raving at the moment, if you have comments ICQ me